Jess and I found the local camera club and signed up to be in their photography class offered through Park & Rec. The first class was last week and was a bit of overview and instruction on all the features the cameras have, what they mean, and how to adjust them.
Tonight's class was about lighting and how it will affect the quality and mood of your photos. It's pretty fun. They ask students to bring pictures each week so they can show them on the projector and provide a light critique to help us improve. Jess and I both received very favorable reviews on our pictures.
I wanted to take a composed shot from a figurine lit with candles. However, options are kind of limited in terms of what you can do when you don't own a tripod or any other fancy/handy equipment. I was able to get a really nice picture though. I used a stack of books as my tripod, and my background is the carpet and a beige throw hung over a music stand:
Jess took these two pictures of some flowers I gave her in celebration of HollyDay:
